BUCK: Adam Carolla is with us now as promised. He is, course, the host of the Adam Carolla podcast. He is a comedian. You all know him from many appearances on Fox. Adam, thanks for being with us. First time on the show.

CAROLLA: Yes. Thanks for having me. I’ve been listening to you guys, and I’ve done radio for 20 years and you guys sound fantastic. So keep up the good work.

BUCK: That’s very kind of you. Thank you. Clay and I get along. I’m not gonna let him get away with not setting up a guesthouse yet. Don’t worry.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: We’re gonna go back to that, ’cause I gotta escape, Adam, the madness in New York City. It’s crazy. You’re a California guy. You’ve got the same thing. So the question I want to pose to you is… Well, it’s a combination of two things. One, I’m actually surprised at how much madness a lot of Americans are willing to put themselves through in this covid era. And, two — or the second part of it is — when do you think people finally say they’ve had enough of this, given that we’re heading into winter again and cases are rising despite all the vaccination and all the rest of it?

CAROLLA: Well, some people enjoy it — and when I say “enjoy it,” I don’t mean enjoy it like you enjoy a popsicle during the summer months. I mean, they kind of need it, you know what I mean? There’s a kind of psychosis that’s going on with some people where it’s — I don’t know — Stockholm Syndrome or something. They fall in love with their captors or they’re the abuse victims that blame themselves.

There’s a definite psychodrama going on where some people sort of need it. The others that are sickened by it are not gonna go along with this. And I mean we’re already there in the sense that think about 10 years ago. If you heard news, “CDC says,” two years ago, you would be all-in, right? “What’s the CDC say?” Or “CDC recommends,” and you would go, “Okay. I’ll do whatever they tell me.” Now your arms are folded, and your foot is tapping, and your eyebrows raised and you’re like, “Yeah. What’s the CDC got to say today? I don’t believe it.”

CLAY: Adam, this is Clay. I appreciate you coming on. When you talk with other comedians — privately, not all publicly — you saw the craziness of Dave Chappelle, the people who were protesting. I hope you saw the video of the people counterprotesting saying, like, “Hey, we like jokes. We like to laugh,” which is amazing.

CAROLLA: Yeah.

CLAY: What do comedians say privately that they’re afraid to say publicly about the era in which we’re in right now? And when you did The Man Show and all the things that you guys did back in the day, would you have ever believed that we would find ourselves where we are right now?

CAROLLA: No. I always think, “Once they get to the comedians, it means they got to everyone else in society,” ’cause the comedians are kind of the last to fall. But they have gotten to a lot of the comedians. They don’t start by going after the comedians. They finish with the comedians. First you have to get the professors and the faculty and all the people in the positions of power, and then at some point — when you run out of garbage men and plumbers — you get to the comedians.

And they actually got to the comedians, which is sad because you want the comedians to speak their mind and to have their own space. Really what you want out of comedians and what you would like out of Fauci. You don’t like the idea that the guy’s been made, right? I want him independent, autonomous, giving his own opinion regardless of politics or how it looks. And that’s what you want out of comedians.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Adam Carolla, host of the Adam Carolla podcast. And, Adam, you know, to that end, we’re talking about who’s willing to make jokes, what jokes they’re willing to make. Joe Biden is the president of the United States right now, which one would think is a fertile ground for a lot of it joking to be made. Do you at least hear from people — ’cause you’re tied in to the combed community.

You’re a guy who’s been doing this for a lot of years and with a lot of success and you know many of the big names in the business personally. Do they feel like they can’t make jokes about this current regime of lunacy, or is it that they don’t like it see it as funny because — as you say — they’ve gotten to them in a way it’s not just — they’re scared of making the jokes, they don’t even see the jokes anymore?

CAROLLA: There’s two schools of thought. Yes, it’s their guy. They always do that “we’re equal opportunity offenders.” It’s kind of like the same thing SNL does, they go, “Oh, we go after anyone who’s in power,” until their guy gets into power and then they don’t go after them anymore. But the thing about that makes Joe Biden sort of unique is he is bordering on it’s unfair to make fun of Joe Biden. It’s like, it’s one thing to call one of your dorky friends from the neighborhood what we used to call the R-word, I think?

You know, you could make a lot of jokes about friends. But if someone is actually retarded, you can’t make fun of them. That would be cruel. And we’re getting to the point with Joe Biden where he may have a disability. I mean, there’s a cognitive decline there. Like, in a weird way, it’s almost cruel to make fun of Joe Biden. Now, that doesn’t mean you want him as the president, but it’s getting up against the red limiter of saying, “Is it even fair to make fun of this guy? There’s something clearly wrong with him.”

CLAY: Adam, do you feel like I do when you travel — ’cause you live in L.A. and I wonder if part of you has thought, “Hey, I need to leave California,” like Elon Musk and a lot of other people have. But when you travel around all over the place doing comedy like you do, you go to two different worlds. Red and blue has never been further apart in terms of what the setup is with covid-related restrictions, right?

CAROLLA: Yeah.

CLAY: And so do you feel like you’re going to two different worlds in a way that you never have before? ‘Cause you’ve been traveling doing comedy for a long time. It’s eye opening to go from where I live in Nashville to L.A. or Nashville to New York or vice versa in a way that’s never been before.

BUCK: Oh, absolutely. During the beginning of the pandemic, living in L.A., I started scheduling haircuts, massages, and steak dinners for my travel. I was like, “Oh, good, I’m going to Nashville’ I can get a haircut. I’m going to Houston, we can have a steak dinner after the show.” I was literally planning things you should be walking to in your own neighborhood! I was planning them around the country, number one.

Number two, I do feel like you know those athletes that come from Turkey or some other oppressive regime and they’re trying to explain to everyone how lucky they have it here in the United States? I feel that way when I travel except for I’m talking about leaving California and going to Texas or Florida and telling everyone how lucky they are (laughing) that they can walk around without a mask and go in and get a haircut or steak.

BUCK: Adam, where can folks go to listen to your show and follow more of your work ’cause we want them to check out all the things you’re up to?

CAROLLA: You can go to AdamCarolla.com and find all the tour dates and the podcasts and all the merch and all that stuff, and if you want to check out the special I’m doing, you can go to Daily Wire ’cause I’m doing a series of stand-up specials on The Daily Wire.

BUCK: Oh, that’s good, we love The Daily Wire guys. Give them our regards.

CLAY: They do fantastic work. It’s called Truth Yeller there, I believe, and I need to send you my phone number ’cause I heard you got a text and said, “Hey, this is Clay,” and you thought it was me, but it was actually Clay Aiken.

CAROLLA: (laughing) Yes, you guys are quite different. But I did get a text saying, “Hey, it’s Clay, give me a buzz.” He wanted McCain to come on, Meghan McCain. So I got this text going, “Hey, it’s Clay. I want you to talk to Meghan McCain.” I thought, “Oh, good, Clay Travis,” and I called back, and it was Clay Aiken.

BUCK: The other Clay.

CAROLLA: Disappointed momentarily. Yeah, the other white meat.

BUCK: Thanks for joining us. Adam Carolla, everybody. Adam, great to have you, and we’ll talk to you soon.

CAROLLA: Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Adam Carolla’s stand-up is absolutely fantastic. If you want to see a comedian who is not woke and who will dissect the absurdity of the woke universe and its impact on comedians, Adam is a great follow. Really funny. If you watched The Man Show back in the day, if you watched Loveline, if you remember that with Dr. Drew on MTV. I know him now pretty well based on interacting with him a decent amount in L.A., and he is a fantastic guy. So I encourage you to check out everything that he is doing. He has a sense for what the larger world is like ’cause he used to work in construction.